sharing a public collection with the world

sharing a public collection with the world

/

Artworks in theBroad collection have an enviable itinerary. While other artworks hang in one museum or sit in storage, pieces in the Broad collection travel the world from Dubai to Buenos Aires to Montreal.

Now, even when the works are in storage, their home is a state-of-the-art vault and elegant display at The Broad, visible to everyone who passes through and as readily available to other museums as books in a library.

Since its founding in 1984, The Broad Art Foundation has invited curators and museum directors worldwide to Southern California to view works for exhibitions.

The actual process of lending, however, was not so easy with a collection spread across several Los Angeles warehouses. Curators had to make appointments, trek to far-flung locations, and wait while artwork was unpacked.

NEARLY

0

loans of artwork since 1984

0

+

number of museums that have borrowed works from The Broad Art Foundation

That changed with the opening of The Broad in downtown Los Angeles. With their own museum, Eli and Edye Broad knew they could display more of the collection and continue the public lending program that has always been core to their vision.

Today, The Broad Art Foundation—along with the nearly 2,000 works in the Broad collection—is headquartered at The Broad, with the artworks stored in the second-floor “vault,” a massive grey-cement-clad core of the building. Virtually the entire collection is stored in one place—with room for significant growth. Visitors to The Broad can see the vault’s undulating walls from the lobby—even from the sidewalk along Grand Avenue—and they can peer inside through overlook windows in the stairwell.

There, visitors might see registrars and museum curators sorting through artworks hung on painting racks, selecting works for an exhibition in Mexico City or Paris or North Carolina.